<!--- BODYTEXT --->Eric Weddle would leave his home in south Escondido at 6:30 pretty much every weekend morning during June, knowing traffic on Interstate 15 could bottle up near Lake Hodges and delay him on his way to the Chargers complex for the team's offseason program.

He didn't have to be at the Murphy Canyon facility until 8. Invariably, he would be in the locker room shortly after 7.
That's how Weddle does things. Despite living an hour from campus his junior year at the University of Utah, the kid was never – not once – late for 6 a.m. workouts, according to one of his coaches.

When you're committed to something you can't let your coaches down, your teammates down,” Weddle said recently. “They're counting on you.”
It was pointed out to the earnest rookie that sometimes people accidentally oversleep. Sometimes the alarm doesn't go off. Sometimes things happen. With a blank stare and a shrug, Weddle responded simply, “Not with something like that.”
And there it is – the something more that explains why Weddle, set to begin workouts today among the team's other rookies, was so coveted by the Chargers.
As much as recognizing the tangibles, General Manager A.J. Smith's run of draft success owes to choosing young men he believes possess above-average maturity. He places a premium on players he thinks will rise to the next level seamlessly. A player with a head on straight is as important – maybe more important – to Smith as a player who can break stopwatches.
So while Smith isn't specifically concerned with Weddle's churchgoing habits or his work with special needs kids or his devotion to his wife or his plans to raise a big family and have weekend barbecues in his enormous back yard, those things help explain why Smith parted with multiple draft choices for the right to draft Weddle.

“It was pretty impressive – what we think is a very mature, stable, grounded player, similar to Philip (Rivers),” Smith said. “Not all players have that. In his case, it was all part of the stability. It just added to his athletic ability and what we think about him.”
Weddle, who will compete at strong safety and likely play in certain defensive packages as well as on special teams early this season, wasn't the Chargers' first draft pick in April. But he was their most talked about, because the team gave the Chicago Bears its second-round pick (62nd), third-rounder (93rd) and fifth-rounder (167) in this year's draft and a third-round pick in 2008 to move up 25 spots and take Weddle with the 37th selection overall.
What the Chargers got was a player familiar with their system after running a facsimile at Utah. They got a man two years into his marriage to his high school sweetheart. They got someone who was always the designated driver even before he converted to the Mormon religion a few years ago. They got a special-education major who during college volunteered numerous hours with various youth organizations.

While no one knew it at the time, they got a soon-to-be-father, as Weddle's wife, Chanel, is four months' pregnant.
“The only thing I really want to do is have a big family and play football,” Weddle said. “I'm not into all that other stuff. I'm just a football player.”
Yeah, the Chargers got one of those, too.
At 5 feet 11, he was lightly recruited his senior season in high school after a move from receiver to quarterback. “He didn't fit some people's numbers,” said John Kusleika, Weddle's high school coach. “They weren't hearing what we were trying to tell all of them, that this is the best high school football player I have ever seen.”
Weddle ended up at Utah. He played cornerback and safety and was All-Mountain West Conference at both. And it has been chronicled plenty how he also played quarterback, running back, punter and holder with the Utes. He was on the field for 90 plays in one game last season. In 2006, he accounted for nine touchdowns on five rushes, two interception returns, a fumble return and a pass.
That kind of desire to be so good at so much does not just happen. It flows from a deep-rooted yearning to excel.

“There is an aura around him that young man has – that he always has had,” said Brian Brown, who coached Weddle in basketball at Alta Loma High. “ . . . He's always been a little more mature than other people. Once he sets his mind to something, he's going to do it.”
Brown recalled that Weddle would be pretty banged up by the time he joined the basketball team late after football season. “I knew he wouldn't be a complete basketball player through the whole season,” Brown said. “But I also knew I could trust him in any game situation, because no matter how much his leg was hurting or his elbow was killing him, he would be diving on the floor, going for the ball, doing whatever it took.”

Good. Now, show up in between the reciever and the ball and make some badass plays. And it won't hurt if you lay a couple biznatches out and yes I'm talking about Moss and CJ and all the rest of those mouths.

<!--- BODYTEXT --->So while Smith isn't specifically concerned with Weddle's churchgoing habits or his work with special needs kids or his devotion to his wife or his plans to raise a big family and have weekend barbecues in his enormous back yard, those things help explain why Smith parted with multiple draft choices for the right to draft Weddle.

It seems like being a total dick to them and dismissing them as people not worthy of common courtesy is just as presumptious and being morally superior that YOUR belief is the right belief.

Six of one, half dozen of another.

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Hey, I'm not knocking on their doors telling them how to live their lives. I don't presume that what I believe is right. It's just right for me. If they want to believe in Santa Jesus, I've got no problem with it. It's only when they try to tell me how I should live that I have a problem with it.

Hey, I'm not knocking on their doors telling them how to live their lives. I don't presume that what I believe is right. It's just right for me. If they want to believe in Santa Jesus, I've got no problem with it. It's only when they try to tell me how I should live that I have a problem with it.

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I occasionally tell them that I'm a Wiccan and show them the native american medicine wheel tatooed on my shoulder to get them to leave.

One time when they showed up a few weeks after my son was diagnosed with autism I told them they had 30 seconds to explain to me why their God gave my son autism where he couldn't speak or understand to fulfill the requirements to recieve their God thereby condemming him eternally?
After they stood there stammering for a few seconds I said goodbye and shut the door in their face.

I occasionally tell them that I'm a Wiccan and show them the native american medicine wheel tatooed on my shoulder to get them to leave.

One time when they showed up a few weeks after my son was diagnosed with autism I told them they had 30 seconds to explain to me why their God gave my son autism where he couldn't speak or understand to fulfill the requirements to recieve their God thereby condemming him eternally?
After they stood there stammering for a few seconds I said goodbye and shut the door in their face.

Wasn't having a real good day even before that.

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Good God, you son is lucky to have a father like you. Your walk is a mighty fine one and many can not follow you.

I occasionally tell them that I'm a Wiccan and show them the native american medicine wheel tatooed on my shoulder to get them to leave.

One time when they showed up a few weeks after my son was diagnosed with autism I told them they had 30 seconds to explain to me why their God gave my son autism where he couldn't speak or understand to fulfill the requirements to recieve their God thereby condemming him eternally?
After they stood there stammering for a few seconds I said goodbye and shut the door in their face.